


a million girls would kill for this

by ashers_kiss



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, minor food issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 13:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11601612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashers_kiss/pseuds/ashers_kiss
Summary: She and Andy start taking lunch together about a month later.





	a million girls would kill for this

**Author's Note:**

> Because Emily was always my favourite. Because this has been languishing on paper for years now, and I needed to get out of my own head and current projects for a bit, and feel productive.
> 
> Warnings for discussion of homophobic attitudes and some mild issues around food, given that it is Emily. However, I promise she's eating more than a cube of cheese.
> 
> It should be noted that I don't work in fashion, I have no idea what the attitudes are or have been to ladies who like other ladies. That was more based on things I've heard and been told myself for liking girls. Emily has her issues, but they're not unfounded.
> 
> Unbeta'd, so proceed at your own risk.
> 
> Title is from the film, of course.

She gets the email not a week into her promotion; a gaudy-coloured “CONGRATULATIONS!” followed by a parade of smiley faces. She stares at the email address she hasn’t seen in over a year before she hits reply.

“How did you know?”

The reply is almost instantaneous, and Emily suspects she isn’t the only one procrastinating. “Nigel told me. Don’t be mad at him, I asked.”

She doesn’t know whether the warmth in her stomach is anger, or if she’s maybe a little bit pleased. She tells her assistant – she has an _assistant_ now – to make sure the updated prints are ready for the afternoon’s meeting, and leans back in her brand new chair, in her brand new office. That painting, she decides, tilting her head, is going to have to go.

(It may be a touch too tacky to send it to Lucia, but oh, how she _wants_ to. As a thank you, for old times’ sake. For fucking up, so that she wouldn’t.)

*

She and Andy start taking lunch together about a month later. Emily gets an hour now, though she often works through. Andy insists on meeting once a week, and she watches Emily like a _hawk_ until she finishes her salad. It’s as if she thinks Emily doesn’t eat. It’s _insulting_.

“No more crazy diets?” she asks the first time. Emily glares.

“Dieting is _not_ crazy.”

“No. Of course not.” Andy smiles, and oh, how Emily wants to hate her. “So what happened to Lucia?” Andy asks, starting her dessert – a slice of chocolate cake so thick, Emily feels ill just looking at it, and suddenly, she doesn’t just _want_ to hate her. She shrugs instead.

“Burned out.”

“Really?” Andy props her chin on her hand. “What happened?”

Emily ends up telling her the whole story, about the day Lucia suddenly started throwing spring designs out her office window. She’s quite well aware that Nigel has already has probably already told her, and much better, but by the end Andy’s shrieking with laughter, amidst cries of, “Poor Lucia,” and, “Oh my God, Miranda’s _face_!” and Emily doesn’t quite hate her so much.

*

The rumours start, just like they always do, created by the new girls who don’t quite know what they’re starting, and spread by those bitchy enough that they do. (She thinks, perhaps, that Nigel tries to stop them, because Nigel’s always been a darling, deep down, and he seems to like her, for whatever reason. She also suspects Andy asked him to keep an eye on her, which would be flattering if it wasn’t ridiculous. 

Still, she catches him scolding some of the junior assistants for gossiping – _such_ a hypocrite – and she sees the sadness before he boxes it away, and she allows herself to think that he just might like her, a little.)

It doesn’t help when Andy starts appearing at the office, after she tried to cancel one of their lunches. The first time, Emily walks into her office, nose-deep in files as her assistant chitters away about…something, and almost has a heart attack when she looks up to see Andy perched on her desk.

Andy beams at her, calls out, “Em!” like she _wants_ the whole floor to hear. She hops off the desk, hooking her arm through Emily’s and dragging her to the elevator, Emily’s bag already in her hand, before Emily can do much more than stutter.

Emily doesn’t try to cancel again, but Andy still comes to pick her up. Thankfully, she decides waiting next to her assistant’s desk is much more appropriate, but still.

“You realise,” Emily says the fifth time this happens, staring at her Caesar salad as Andy tucks into a BLT, “that the whole magazine thinks we’re dating.”

“Huh.” Andy wipes mayonnaise from the corner of her mouth, and Emily shudders. _Mayonnaise._ “Really? That – actually explains a lot.”

“You don’t mind?” Emily asks, scream trapped behind her teeth. Andy grins, completely oblivious.

“Why would I? I know we’re not, you know we’re not. Nigel knows we’re not. That’s pretty much everyone I care about in that place.”

Emily doesn’t respond to that, but Andy doesn’t just know words, she knows people (she knows _Emily_ ; not that Emily ever plans on telling her that, or on admitting that she reads that rubbish little bulletin just for Andy’s articles), and she looks up, sharp, watching Emily. Her face softens, and Emily goes back to staring at her food.

“Oh Em,” she breathes, reaching for Emily’s hand across the table. Emily doesn’t want to take it, but Andy always has been a terrible influence.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says; she’s been saying it to herself for so long now, her voice doesn’t even waver. Andy tightens her grip.

“It _does_ ,” and good lord, she’s got her earnest voice on. Emily’s going to be fielding blind dates from that one Women’s Studies class at Northwestern for _months_ now, she can tell. Then Andy frowns, and Emily braces herself. “But I thought – I mean, Nigel – ”

The laugh isn’t supposed to come out so bitter, or hurt her throat so much. “Nigel – _men_ are allowed. They’re _expected_. Women are – everyone suddenly thinks they know why you got into fashion, and it isn’t because you have an impeccable eye for colour or an appreciation of the latest Westwood collection.” She realises how loud she is a beat too late into the silence that’s fallen. Everyone’s staring, and her cheek burns against the fingers of her free hand. Oh God, she wants to _die_.

“Oh honey,” Andy says, once the chatter of other café patrons has started back up again. She’s much quieter now, shoulders hunched into their conversation. It does a little to soothe the mortification scorching Emily’s skin, her stomach. “What can I do?”

She takes a breath. And another. Andy squeezes her hand, just as soft as her words. It shouldn’t help. “Stop coming to the office,” Emily says, and waits for her to pull back.

Andy nods. “Okay.” Doesn’t tell her she’s being unreasonable, overreacting, that she can’t keep her from the building. Just says “okay” like it’s _nothing_. “Anything else? Do you want to stop doing lunch?”

They’re still holding hands, Emily realises. Andy has calluses, strange little bumps on the pad of her forefinger, her thumb. She swallows, takes another breath. “No.” She doesn’t pull away. Neither does Andy.

“Okay.” Andy smiles this time, bright and happy. “Let’s get you some chocolate.” She ignores Emily’s protests, flags down a waiter to order two slices of that ridiculous cake.

Emily has to admit – to herself, at home that night, silently – it is pretty good cake.

*

The rumours die, eventually, just like they always do, and Emily doesn’t miss the relief on Nigel’s face, smiles back at him when he sees her, just a little. She flirts with some of the male models and argues with some of the other Clackers – oh, she _hates_ Andy – about Brad Pitt versus Jude Law or some other nonsense.

Andy doesn’t come by anymore, but they still do lunch. Sometimes, Nigel joins them. Sometimes, Andy can’t make it, and the two of them go alone. They talk about the magazine the whole time, but that’s okay.

Everything’s okay.

It’s better than okay. Miranda takes her to Paris, as well as Nigel, because apparently Nigel won’t stop wittering on about her. Emily was her assistant long enough that she almost feels confident interpreting that as Miranda’s impressed with her.

“Of course she’s impressed,” Andy writes when Emily emails her on her next working lunch. “That place would fall apart without you. It’s about time she realised that.”

“Shut up, Betty,” Emily replies. But her stomach is warm again.

*

When Nigel finally leaves – a new British designer, said to be the “suitable heir” to the vast hole left by Alexander McQueen (Emily remembers crying that day, though it was hours after she heard the news), and already making much bigger waves than Holt’s Follet-led efforts – Miranda pretends she doesn’t notice. Andy and her boyfriend throw him a party at Nate’s restaurant. It is Emily’s job to get him there.

He offers her a job in the car. Emily does think about it – she knows no one believes her, not even (especially not) Andy; she almost doesn’t believe herself – but eventually, she says, “Not right now, dear.” They both know the offer won’t come again. 

But Nigel only smiles at her, and tells her not to let “right now” become “for good”, because Miranda’s not giving up the job any time soon. Emily laughs and kisses him on the cheek. Then they get out the car and head inside, arm in arm.

“Charming little place, isn’t it,” Nigel mutters before Andy descends on them, where “charming” means anything but. She’s going to miss him, Emily realises, and blinks fast. She tells Andy she has mascara in her eye.

Later that night, after she’s had three glasses of champagne – two too many, really – feels decidedly light and floaty, Andy introduces her to Sarah, who has the most beautiful mass of dark curls and is wearing far too many pretty scarves for Emily to keep track of, and she thinks, oh.

She thinks it again when she wakes up on Sarah’s couch, still in last night’s brand new (twisted, crumpled, _ruined_ ) Dolce and covered in what has to be the ugliest afghan, with Sarah waving a cup of coffee under her nose.

Six months later, Andy is still claiming responsibility. Emily lets her, and takes Sarah’s hand when she comes to pick her up for lunch.


End file.
